Blame & Gravity
by Polly Lynn
Summary: Summary: "It's not much. No explanation. A promise she'll be back and between the lines the fact that she didn't want him to wonder." A four-shot, set very shortly after the events of After the Storm (5 x 01). References to Always. NOW COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Blame and Gravity

Rating: T

WC: ~2000, this chapter.

Summary: "It's not much. No explanation. A promise she'll be back and between the lines the fact that she didn't want him to wonder." A two-shot, set very shortly after the events of After the Storm.

A/N: Strange, strange idea of Brain's that popped in while writing Chapter 5 of Seven Kisses.

Chapter 2 probably up Sunday. No later than Monday.

* * *

You can't blame gravity for falling in love

— Albert Einstein

* * *

She's gone when he wakes up. It's not like the first time, when she sauntered in wearing a dress shirt of his she must have gone looking for. When every step was a performance, and every flash of endless leg was calculated. And still she was shy, hiding behind a pair of coffee mugs.

It's not like the second time, either, when she left him behind. Left him to startle awake to emptiness. Left him gasping in the too-new light of her bedroom, knowing in the first moment that she'd gone. Left him again to go into battle alone.

It's his room this time. His bed, and she's long gone. The sheets are cold and neatly pulled up. The comforter is turned back with the smoothed pillow tucked over top.

She's gone. It's the third time in not many more days, but it's different. He's not sure how he knows, but he pushes himself up the headboard. He lays a hand over where she should be and knows it's different.

There's a note. Half under his phone on the nightstand and his pulse picks up. A few words and a coffee stain in the corner. Like she thought about leaving it there first. In the kitchen. But she knows now. Just a few days, and she knows where to leave a note so he'll see it first thing.

It's not much. No explanation. A promise she'll be back and between the lines the fact that she didn't want him to wonder. Her initials. The _K _a little narrower than it ought to be. Like the _B _alone was her first instinct and she squeezed it in. It was. She did. He thinks so, anyway, and he doesn't mind.

She left a note. She'll be back.

* * *

It's just past midday when she knocks on the door. The sun pours bright through every window. It's warm for May. He knows from the hum of news in the background, though he hasn't really been listening.

He hasn't been doing much. _I'll be back. _Her note hadn't said any more than that and he'd wanted to wait. Wanted every possibility open to them when she made good.

He opens the door to her knock. They face each other across the threshold, a charge between them. Energy still there, days on. He feels it. Sees that she does, too. There's heat behind her eyes and a fraction of a smile. An upturned instant of her mouth that's conspiratorial. A little smug. But she stays where she is. Outside looking in.

"Hey." Something keeps his voice quiet, even though his heart speeds up and his blood rushes faster, like always.

"Hey." She responds in kind, but something is off. Like she's surprised. Startled to hear him speak.

He almost asks if she's ok, but he knows she's not. He can see that she's not, and he knows just in time that she doesn't want him to ask. That she's not ready to talk about whatever it is. He knows, just in time.

"Glad you're back," he says instead.

He turns. A slight twist of hips and shoulders. Inviting her in and not sure if she'll accept. Not sure if she's staying. Not sure of much but the fact that she's not ok.

She looks past him, though. To the kitchen and the couch and the midday sun falling on new familiar places. She wants to come in, but she's not sure she should.

He is. He reaches across the threshold to tug her wrist. To turn her by the shoulders and kiss her cheek. To draw her inside and say again, "Glad you're back."

* * *

He's trying not to offer things. Trying not to hover or anticipate. He's not great at this. He's not great at the quiet way she works from the inside, aching all the while.

He's not great at not knowing. Where she went or why she's dressed like this. Sober grey and black. Too warm and more than just the season catching her unawares.

It's her shoes that strike him most. She steps out of them in the hallway. She presses his shoulder to steady herself. Almost lets her head come to rest on his chest a second. Almost, but not quite.

They're lined up next to the door now. Sensible and low heeled. Well made, but remarkable in how unremarkable they are. How not _her,_ and he can't help but wonder. He can't help but notice the way the wide cuffs of her pants sweep the floor. That they're dirty already. Like they're meant for her usual heels, tall and striking. He can't help but wonder.

She slips on to a stool. It's a relief. A script he knows. He goes to the far side of the counter. For the coffee pot, automatically, but she stops him.

"Do you have . . . a beer?"

He turns to her, the surprise he knows is on his own face mirrored in hers. She didn't really expect to ask.

"Sure," he says. "Yeah . . . or . . ."

He gestures to the wine fridge. To the bar cart by the couch.

She stops him, though. A gesture and words, each a little curt. "A beer. A beer's good."

He nods. He opens the fridge and reaches for one. Reaches for another on second thought. He doesn't really want one. He's running on coffee and not much else. He was waiting for her, but it seems wrong to let her drink alone.

She looks relieved as one bottle, then the other, comes down on the counter. He twists the tops off and she looks grateful. Glad not to be drinking alone, but that's as far as it goes for the moment.

She's quiet. Not ok and not ready for him to ask about it. He's glad enough for the beer. Glad enough for something to do until she is. If she will be.

She's most of the way through her beer before she says anything. When she does, it's about the weather. About how hot it is and bright. It's not idle conversation. There's something pained underneath and his heart sinks.

He thinks about her cuffs dragging over the floor. Sensible shoes and dark streaks on the neat material. Part of the story comes together, but not nearly enough.

He looks up from his beer. She's just finishing hers and the question tumbles out before he can stop himself.

"Are you ok?"

She doesn't answer at first. She tips the bottle toward her and rolls the edge back and forth. The glass rings along the marble of the countertop, its music not nearly filling the silence.

She looks up at him, though, before too long.

"Not really," she says.

* * *

She asks for clothes. Pushes the bottle away from her and slips to the floor. One thudding foot, then the other, like it's sudden. The need to be out of them. Sober grey and black. Too warm even in the blast of the loft air conditioning. Too warm warm with the midday sun pouring through the windows.

She doesn't have anything here. Not a thing but what she's wearing. It's only been a few days and with everything—with Bracken and Maddox and Smith—they've been back and forth. Her place and here. He wishes there were something for her. Anything of hers, but it's just been a few days.

She must have gone home first. Before wherever she went. She must have gone home for this. Sober grey and black and shoes he'd never have guessed were hers.

She went home before, but not after. She came here instead. Right after, he thinks.

_I'll be back. _

And here she is, even though she's not really ok.

_Clothes_. He jerks himself back to the moment. To what she needs. _Clothes. _Clothes, he can do.

"Clothes. Of course. Sweats ok?" He starts toward the bedroom then stops. He gestures to the stairs. "Or girls clothes. Women's . . ."

She laughs. It's a little grim. It's more than a little hollow, and her eyes are on the floor as she crosses to him. As she rushes into him, sudden and head down. She crashes against his chest and rests her cheek this time, just for a handful of seconds. "Sweats are good."

* * *

She's comfortable. At home already as she opens and closes drawers. He's the one who hovers. He's the one clinging to the doorframe while she moves easily around the room, stripping down as she goes in and out of the closet.

She finds pajama pants that will do. A tight drawstring and a rolled waist to help with the length. She stoops for a t-shirt on the floor, half under the bed. He blushes. He feels caught out even though she's the one who tossed it there.

She raises her arms high. The faded black falls over her ribs and he breathes a sigh of relief. She looks better like this. More like herself in his clothes than what she's been wearing.

She tosses those on the armchair. A messy heap at first, as though she'd like to be done with them. But it's not in her nature to leave it. She sighs. Her shoulders slump as she scans the floor. Like the five steps from here to there stretch on forever.

He moves then. He's by her side. Brushing past with a glancing kiss.

"I've got it," he says low in her ear. "Let me."

She nods. Her hair falls forward and hides her face, but she grabs his wrist. She holds on a second, crowding her body into his. She comes to rest again. Another handful of seconds ending with a kiss on his jaw. Fingers curling to hold him a moment after and he's glad he hasn't shaved. She's glad.

"Thanks." She roughs her cheek against his. "Thanks."

* * *

He takes a second. He burns a little. Feels himself go red to his scalp. Feels a fool, but he takes a reverent second as he slides his own shirts aside and slips in the hanger with her clothes.

He steps back. Watches, pleased, as the sober grey and black swing home. He takes another second. Breathes, because it's not the time for this. For it to feel satisfying and _right_ for her clothes and his to be here, side by side. It's not the time when it's only been a few days and she's not ok.

She's not ok.

He steps out of the closet and she's there in the same spot. There where he left her, halfway between the chair and the bed. She looks lost.

Her head snaps up when she hears him. A little slow, like her mind is on other things. She tries to smile, but it falls. Over before it starts and she looks around. Lost.

"What time is it?" she asks. "I don't even know what time it is."

"Noon?" He shrugs. His phone is . . . somewhere. Hers is probably in the closet now. Probably the heavy thing tugging at one corner of her jacket. "A little after maybe."

"Noon," she says. Flat, like she's shocked and expected it all at once.

It's bright in the room. Soft, anyway. Lots of light slanting in to tell him it's early yet. Sort of early, anyway.

"Do you want to go back to bed?"

She's tired. She looks tired. That's all he's really thinking, but her eyebrow shoots up. She tries out a grin and makes it this time. Brief, but knowing. Conspiratorial and a little smug.

He crosses to her. Slides one arm around her waist and tugs her ear. "To sleep." He stoops. Mouths a kiss against her neck, then pulls back to look at her. "To _sleep_."

"In the middle of the _day?" _Her eyes are narrow. She's laughing underneath, but longing, too. Cautiously hopeful like she's never thought of such a thing and wants it.

"In the middle of the _day_," he mimics. "It's been done."

She looks up at him. Weary, longing, and not ok. She tugs at his shirt. His hip and his shoulder and the back of his neck, all of a sudden. She pulls his mouth to hers, careless and clumsy.

"Come with me," she says. "Come back to bed with me."


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Blame and Gravity, Ch. 2

Rating: T

WC: ~1500, this chapter; 3500 total, so far

Summary: "It's not much. No explanation. A promise she'll be back and between the lines the fact that she didn't want him to wonder." A three-shot, set very shortly after the events of After the Storm.

A/N: Um. Hello. If you have never read one of my stories before, I would like to say that my promising a two-shot and changing it to a three-shot is an aberration, but that would be a lie. Castle is such a CHATTY, ruggedly handsome fiend that stories from his POV inevitably grow along the way.

Will try very hard to have the last of this up no later than tomorrow. It's almost finished, but I think this is a natural break. Thank you very much for the kind reviews on Chapter 1.

* * *

He climbs in beside her. He won't say no to her. Kate Beckett asking him back to bed in the middle of the day? He'll never say no.

But he's worried about how this will work. He's worried that it can't. She's a light sleeper. Watchful and restless and always skimming the surface. And he's not tired. Not at all, and stillness isn't exactly his strong suit. He hopes she can rest at least, so he worries.

She drops off right away, though. Almost as soon as the sheets settle on her skin, sleep takes her, heavy and deep. It's new. New to him, but it's only been a few days after all. The sight of her beside him—_here_—seems so right. It has the familiarity of the thousand times he's imagined it. Not just having her, but having her _here._ He has to remind himself that it's only been a few days.

He doesn't really know what's new and what isn't, so he watches. Smiles to himself about the chance to do it without her scolding. There's no chance of scolding right now. Sleep has her. Rest so profound that he risks a touch. Movement. One palm gliding over her where she's already peeled away the covers from the far side of her body. Shoulder to hip and back again. The rasp of fabric on skin making music with her breath.

He'll wait a while. That's what he thinks to himself. He's not tired. Not at all, but he can wait. When it gets too much and he can't keep still enough, he'll stay nearby. He'll slip into the office to work. Or grab his laptop and set up shop in the chair right here. Maybe. He doesn't want her to wake up alone. He doesn't want her to think he's gone.

He tells himself he'll wait just a little while, but it's hypnotic. Her steady breath and the warm skin beneath her clothes. His clothes. He drifts off. His hand stills at the curve of her waist. Two fingers barely touching skin where the frayed hem of the shirt bunches up.

Even at rest, she tugs him along after her. His eyes slip closed. He follows her into sleep.

* * *

It's dark when he wakes. It shouldn't be. Immediately, he knows it shouldn't.

He blinks into the gloom. He blinks up at the ceiling. He wonders about mixed messages and the passage of time on a strange day like this. It's dark, but he knows it hasn't been that long. His hands and feet work. He wiggles fingers and toes and there's none of the clumsiness in them born of a long nap. The tip of his nose hasn't gone cold in the air conditioning, and his mind spools up too quickly.

It can't have been that long. It shouldn't be dark.

He's moving before he remembers not to. That she's so easy to wake and he needs to be careful. He wants her to sleep if she can. She's not ok, and he hopes she can sleep.

He goes still. Listens for her breath and the weight of her at rest in the dark that shouldn't be. He finds both. Breath and deep sleep. Respite from whatever's wrong. For now, anyway.

He finds her and waits a while longer. He makes sure of her and wonders about the dark. Wonders if he got good at stillness somewhere along the way or if that's her, too. If the possibility in him is just something she brings out, like the patience for this that a long, hard year couldn't break in the end. Like so many things about the person he's become since he's known her.

He eases on to his side. Startles back with a bitten off laugh. They're nose to nose. She must have flopped over in her sleep. Turned toward him and reached out to hog the covers. More of the mattress. To snatch the corner of his pillow, too, like hers isn't enough.

He watches her a while longer. Nose to nose. He listens to her breathe and forgets to wonder why it's dark. He forgets to wonder when he learned to be still.

* * *

He nods off again. Not for long, but it's surprising. He's not tired, but helpless against it somehow.

It's the dark that shouldn't be, he thinks. And her. The stillness and weight of her. The juxtaposition of strange and familiar. The ways that having her beside him is such a long time coming and nothing like he ever imagined. Both at once.

They're still nose to nose. She's drawn into herself in sleep. Fists of sheet pulled up to her chin and her knees tucked against her body. Guarded, but not quite defensive. Her chin is lifted and her face is tipped in his direction. And when her mouth turns down—when a dream takes her or she rises to the surface and nearly wakes—she leans closer. Seeking, she breathes him in and settles. Like his nearness calms her.

He hopes so.

He hopes it does, but he's nearing the end of this. His unexpected capacity for stillness. He's wondering about the dark again and where she's been. Why she's not ok and what he can do. What she'll tell him and what she might let him do for her.

This is a lot already. For her and them and where they are. For the fact that it's only been a few days. It's a lot that she even answered when he asked. Truthful, even though she hesitated.

_Are you ok?_

_Not really._

It's a lot that she left a note and came back. That she asked for a beer and for clothes and climbed into bed in the middle of the day. That she asked him to come with her. It's a lot and nothing close to what he'd do for her. What he wants to do so she'll be ok again.

Wondering makes him restless. It prickles over him even when his body is still and prickles over her, too. Uneasy fingers of it penetrating the sleep that still weighs her down.

He eases himself from the bed. Bunches the covers against her and presses a fist into his pillow. She stirs. He holds his breath, but it's over in a moment. She gathers more of the blanket and tugs his pillow further under her cheek. She unfurls and takes over more of the mattress.

_Manifest destiny,_ he thinks.

* * *

He steps quietly from the bed to the window, too curious about the dark to linger long now that he's up. He eases the slats of the blinds a sliver apart and sees the patter of rain. Silver patterns on the glass, and beyond, clouds and fog as sudden and thick as grief. It's surprising after the morning of the sun pouring in, but that explains it. Why it's dark, even though it hasn't been long.

He turns from the window and there it is. A discovery he owes to the dark. A white corner peeping out from beneath the arm chair. He stoops to retrieve it, a card too small to fill his palm. It's totally unfamiliar to him. Completely.

He remembers the messy heap of her clothes bundled in the chair. It must be hers, whatever it is. It must have slipped from a pocket when he gathered them up.

He turns it front to back and front to back and tries to make sense of it. The white caught his eye, but it's nearly filled with text. Tiny and impossible to read in the dark. He makes out two lines at the top, centered like an epigram. Beneath that, white space and a block of verse of some kind.

The reverse is an image. A dull bronze background. A metallic sheen that catches what little light there is. It's flat. A pointedly two-dimensional single figure. A man, he thinks, but it's hard to see in the dark.

A saint, he realizes. He thinks of stained glass and Ryan's wedding. He traces an arc near the top of the card. A halo. A saint. He understands now. He sees more. His eyes adjust and make better use of the low light, but the pieces fit together, too. A mystery unfolding in the dark. Weighing him down, even with how little he knows.

A saint on one side, a prayer on the other. And the two lines. A name and a date. Dates. Birth and death. He can't read it. He can't make out the small print in the dim light, but he knows what the second date must be. Just a few days ago. Just a few.

"Edward McManus."

Her voice should surprise him. Coming out of the dark like that, it should be startling, but he expects it somehow. He expects to she her hunched against the headboard with her knees drawn up. Just a silhouette, but it seems familiar. How small she looks with the covers pulled around her and a pillow drawn tight against her middle.

"Eddie," she says a moment later. Low, but steady, like she's demanding things of herself. Demanding the words. "Doorman at the Rosslyn. Maddox snapped his neck."


	3. Chapter 3

Title: Blame and Gravity, Ch. 3

Rating: T

WC: ~1300, this chapter; 4800 total, so far

Summary: "It's not much. No explanation. A promise she'll be back and between the lines the fact that she didn't want him to wonder." A four-shot, set very shortly after the events of After the Storm.

A/N: Shhhh. Four chapters, BUT THAT IS IT. (And I have chapter four written. I will put it up tonight. I just need to run the fine-toothed editing comb over it.)

Again, thank you for reading and reviewing. I know it's an odd idea and I appreciate the tolerance for that.

* * *

She's in motion. Silent and in motion immediately. Before the handful of words even dies away, she's out of the bed. Out the bedroom door. Out of sight. She's gone, and he's still sitting there. Perched on the edge of the arm chair with the card slipping from his fingers.

He knew this. He remembers now—dimly—a DMV photo. Ryan clearing the murder board, and the two of them staring a hole in the closed door of the Captain's office. He remembers. A name and a face he'd hardly registered before it disappeared into the evidence box. Case closed with Maddox in a thousand pieces.

He knew this. He should have known what it would mean to her. But he still doesn't. She went to the funeral. That's where she was. But he doesn't know what it meant to her. What it means to her right now.

_Are you ok?_

_Not really._

It's the only thing he really knows.

Sudden fear launches him out of chair. Abrupt certainty that she'll go. That whatever it means to her she's stuffing her feet into sensible shoes right now. That she's determined to carry it all alone. That she's leaving.

"Beckett!" He calls out as he crosses the room. Loud. He has it in his head that she's at the door. That she might be gone already.

"Kate!" It dies this time. A shout that withers.

She's in his office. At the window. Her forehead rests against the glass door to the outside as if she'd like to go. As if she wants to be gone, but this way. Above the ground.

There's more light here. The fog is thick, but the glass lets the day in. It dusts a pattern over her cheeks. Speckles on her chin and the paleness of her arms wrapped around her middle. Shadows of raindrops.

"Late," she says. She twists her arm like she expects her watch to be there. She doesn't look down, though. Her gaze is steady out the window. "Is it late?"

He steps up behind her, not sure what's ok and what's not, but she reaches for him. Wiggles one hand free from the tight hold she has on herself and fumbles for his.

"Rain." He folds his fingers around hers. Holds on willingly as she pulls his arm around her and settles his palm against her hip, firm and definite beneath her own. "Not late. Just rain."

* * *

They stand at the window together a while. Details drift out of her now and then. Disjointed facts like pieces of her breaking off and dissolving, their particles crossing paths. Things jumbling together in the still, heavy air.

"Rain's better." She taps a fingernail against the glass. Slow, deliberate percussion. Dot for dot. "Sun always feels wrong. Too late for her, though."

"Her?"

He's pacing himself. Letting her rest against him and listening, mostly. But now and then he asks. He draws things out of her. She doesn't answer every time. Sometimes she ducks her head. Hides behind her hair and gives the merest shake of it.

Sometimes it's an answer, but nothing like he's expecting. An answer out of time and place, for him. Important for her. What this might mean for her. Things he never expected.

He never expected to know what the sweat felt like rolling down her neck as she stood in front of Roy Montgomery's grave. Or an image, too vivid even for him, of fingernails she'd bitten bloody. Her father losing patience as she tried to cover them with last-minute polish.

Sometimes it's about this. About the last few days and what this means to her. It just takes a while. He's still and quiet in the mean time. It takes a while now, but the answer comes.

"His wife." She bites her lip. Hard. She's angry with herself. "Widow." She closes her eyes. Stutters out one more thing. "Brenda. She told me to call her Brenda."

She wanders then. Details out of order. Jagged moments strung together with silence. The legs of the folding chairs sinking into the ground still wet from just a few days ago. The sun and the tacked up hem of a borrowed black dress failing in the heat. The woman's embarrassed preoccupation with it.

"She hadn't thought about it until last night. A dress," she says. "She's alone now. No kids. All the plans. It's hard to think of everything."

He doesn't have an answer to that. To any of it. He stands with her. Props her up because it's all he can do. She leans into him, though, and he's grateful, even if it's more for him.

She speaks again after a while. An almost dreamy murmur. "Maybe it's better for her, too."

"Better?" he asks quietly.

"The rain," she says. "Maybe it seems like the world is paying attention."

* * *

He coaxes her into the living room. Her body is heavy against his. He'd hold her up forever, but she's weary. She gives in too soon for him to really like it. The fact that she keeps hold of his fingers and follows.

He settles her on the couch, though. He fusses. Props her up surrounded by pillows and hits on a way to do it that's somehow right. Right enough that she gives him the exasperated frown that's really a smile. A weak smile in the lamplight and his spine loosens a little.

Too soon, though.

He busies himself in the kitchen. Offers tea and gets a glare for that. A sharp look that's almost normal and his spine loosens a little more. Too soon.

He makes coffee. Puts together a plate while it brews. Nothing, really. Crackers and cheese and a little fruit. A handful of M & Ms like garnish, because he felt her stomach rumbling against him. It's pushing. It's pushing a little, but the glare feels almost normal.

He thinks he's caught the rhythm of this. Repetition when there's more. When a particular thing hangs too heavy for her to untangle all at once. Strings of other details studded with one that comes up over and over. He asks then. The second or third time, he prompts her with a word or two. Or with something he gives back. Details in kind.

"She thanked me."

The words are low enough that he almost doesn't hear them as he crosses the room. He tilts his head. Considers it as he stands in front of her, coffee cup and plate in hand.

"That happens," he says. "People say thank you."

The words are nothing. A careless observation, because it's something that's always interested him. They've talked about it before. The strange formality of thank you when she is the knock on the door in the middle of the night. When the next knock is a stranger saying they need the room and thank you carries someone broken out the door into a world with a hole through the middle.

It's nothing. It's trouble, and he's not expecting it.

"I don't want anything," she says. It's ragged and fierce and angry.

"Kate." He sets down the cup and plate hard enough to jar the bones of his hands. Hard enough to burn himself as the coffee sloshes over the rim, but she's moving again. She's shoving pillows to the floor and swaying on her feet. Looking around wildly for an out.

She wants out.

"Kate." He drops his hands to his sides. He steps back from her, afraid to do anything else. Afraid to make it worse.

But the anger drains out of her. The fierceness and something else with it. Energy and drive. The things that make her ok.

"I don't want anything," she says again. To the floor this time.


	4. Chapter 4

Title: Blame & Gravity, Ch. 4

WC: ~1700 this chapter, ~6900 total

Summary: "It's not much. No explanation. A promise she'll be back and between the lines the fact that she didn't want him to wonder." A four-shot, set very shortly after the events of After the Storm.

A/N: Thank you for the reviews and for your patience with Brain once again. FINISHED now, I promise!

* * *

There's nowhere she wants to be after that. She doesn't leave. He holds on to the fact of it as she drifts from room to room. He stays put.

Tries to stay put. He dumps the coffee down the sink. Throws the whole plate away. A dramatic gesture, but he can't stand to look at it. He keeps it to himself at least. Shoves it deep into the bag and gets rid of it all while she's . . . somewhere.

He picks up the pillows. Tosses them in the general direction of where they belong and holds his tongue when she passes by in the distance. Keeping to the walls. He wants to offer her the guest room. Privacy. His bedroom. The office. The whole damned place, if she wants. He'll go out. He can go out.

He wants to offer her something she needs.

But she doesn't want anything.

He stands in the living room at loose ends. There's nothing else to do. No straightening or fixing or getting rid of that can busy his hands and help him stay put.

He wants his laptop. Wants to write, though it's such an unlikely thing.

He turns for the office and she's there. She doesn't face him but she's there. Anchored now, like she's determined to fix herself in this space with him. He watches, useless and silent, as she travels down the bookshelves. Touching spines and upending small things. Feeling the weight of them in her palm and placing them back, just so.

He's stranded. Nothing to do, and it feels wrong to busy himself. But wrong, too, to wait. To watch like she's a curiosity, but it seems to be the right thing. Waiting.

"I wasn't a cop." She turns to him then. "I wasn't there because I'm a cop."

He's about to say something. To fill the silence with some reassurance, but she's this contradiction before him. Stiff back and determined shoulders. Pliant fingers moving sadly over things. Regretfully. She's vibrating with unchanneled anger and bent with grief. Nothing he might say will do. So he waits.

"I wasn't a cop," she repeats. She looks at him then. She raises her head and sets the thing in her hands down. Some tiny ceramic piece she replaces with infinite care. "She shouldn't have thanked me."

He lifts his hands. Helpless and wordless because she's not talking about the funeral. Not just about that. He lifts his hands and catches her. She rushes into him. She buries her face in his chest and knots her fingers at his spine. She mumbles apologies against him and he holds her. Gives her one word at a time because it's not him. They're mostly not for him, but she needs someone to hear them. Whether she wants anything or not, she needs someone.

He holds her until she works herself still again. Until she tips her head back and looks at him. Dry eyed and a little more like herself. She looks at him, confused.

"What?" he asks softly. He'd wait. He'd let her lead, but she looks so . . . perplexed.

"I'm hungry," she says. Surprised by it. Annoyed when a laugh breaks off and finds its way out of him. "I'm _really_ hungry."

* * *

She says no to pancakes. No to M & Ms and her favorite takeout.

"Toast," she says finally. "Just butter."

He shakes his head. Wants to tease her, but it's penance of a kind. Denying herself the things she likes. That might bring her comfort she thinks she doesn't deserve.

She puts away slice after slice, though, and nods when he asks if coffee is ok. He steals a bite from one piece and hides the evidence at the bottom of the pile. Plays innocent and smiles at the wall when she pegs him in the back of the head with her wadded up napkin.

He turns back to her, coffee in hand. He means to apologize. It's just sugar and cream, not really the way she likes it and he means to promise he'll get vanilla in. But she takes the cup from him with a real smile—weary but real—and something else comes out.

"Did you go alone?"

They both freeze, the coffee cup still between them. His finger hooked over the rim, hers on the handle.

"Alone?"

"I thought . . ." He lets go the cup and wishes he hadn't immediately. He wants something to do with his hands.

Something to do, and he wants to tell her _never mind._ He wants to back out of this, but he doesn't. He plants his palms on the counter. He makes himself stay.

"Esposito. I thought maybe . . ."

"No. I . . ." She blinks down at the coffee. Up at him. She's at a loss. "I never thought to ask."

"No," he says. "You wouldn't."

It's . . . dark. Not sharp exactly. Not sarcastic at all. But pained. Frustrated. An echo of the anger that moved him. The dark finality that took him through her doorway and down the hall and out into a world with a hole through the middle of it. It's more than he meant to say. More than he ever meant to say right now.

"I'm sorry," he says immediately.

He is. He's sorry because it's too soon. Neither of them is ready for it. It's only been a few days, and she's here and that's all that matters. They're here. It's all that matters, but it doesn't mean the rest is gone. On his side or hers. He's sorry, and he knows they're not ready, but the words come anyway.

"You could have, though, Kate." He closes his fingers over hers and she lets him at least. "You could have asked."

She doesn't look at him. She stares down at the still surface of the coffee. Her hair hides her face. She gives the merest shake of her head.

"No," she says. Quiet and definite. "I couldn't."

* * *

They spend the day together and apart. He writes. Disjointed things, mostly. Processing. Heaping the broken mess inside him together in ways that will make sense someday. When they're ready and he needs them, too.

She stays close, mostly. Reads in the armchair or watches the rain through the glass, a book forgotten in her lap.  
Other times, she roams. Picks things up and puts them back. She sits at the piano a while and picks out melodies. A brief snatch of something with two hands that she calls up from memory, but she closes the lid soon after.

He reads, too. When the words run dry for now, he closes the laptop and settles in the armchair next to hers until she gives up. Until she hauls the comforter off the bed and climbs in the chair with him. Then he sets the book aside and they watch the rain together.

They don't talk much. A few details break off and rise up. The pastry she took because it was rude not to. The way it was dust in her mouth. That she left too soon and not soon enough. That she hadn't wanted to go to the house afterward at all. Not at all. But his wife—Brenda—had asked. Held her hand in both her own and asked her to come.

It takes more and more out of her, though. Every detail. She's quieter with each one.

The longest comes last. Not from today, but then. Just a few days ago. How she was down before she could blink. The floor slamming up into her and her gun sliding. Bouncing off something. The body. His body. _Eddie._

"His eyes were open," she says, and he can tell she's done.

He wants to say so many things. That Maddox killed him. Would have killed whoever was there. Ryan. Some uniform. Him. He wants to tell her they can't know what would have happened if she hadn't gone then. If they'd taken backup. They can't know.

He wants her to let herself remember that it's Maddox who killed the man. But it's not absolution she wants and it's not his to give. He listens. He holds her.

_I wasn't a cop._

* * *

They watch stupid TV. Curled up together and not really seeing. They scrounge for something like dinner. More toast, but other things, too. Sweets and things she likes. They eat on the floor of his office, a tray between them and she cleans up. She insists.

She leaves him and comes back. She walks the floors and brings him things from the shelves and tables. From high up in the loft. She asks for stories and he tells them. True things and tall tales. Memories and lies that lighten the shadows on her a little.

It's an odd day. Time stretching out and speeding up and the sun never comes back. The rain stays.

She's tired early. He is, too. The whole day has been a lot.

She tells him he doesn't have to come to bed. That she's fine and he worries that she wants to be alone. He thinks about offering the guest room again. Privacy. He lifts his face to hers and sees her waiting. Hovering. Not asking because she can't and he's not sure what she'd say. Which way she'd go.

"I'm tired, too," he says and she lets out a little breath.

_Come with me. _

He does. He makes the bed. Fresh sheets and tucked corners even though they're climbing right in. She trails the comforter in from the office and slides down the headboard on her side. Her side, even though it's just been a few days. She closes her eyes and sighs as the heavy fabric snaps once in the air and settles over her.

He crawls in beside her and switches off the light. She burrows against him and they're quiet.

He's almost asleep when her words come. Soft but clear in the dark.

"It would be you." She gulps a breath. It's hard for her. A lot. "If I could ask, it would be you."


End file.
